In talking about how he has had to deal with online hatred and attacks, Greg Lukianoff passes on the advice he got from some wise man:
You can have friends whose opinions you don’t take seriously, and you can have opponents whose point of view you very much do. So, pick your ten. Figure out who the small number of people are whose judgment you genuinely trust, the people who know you well enough and love you enough to tell you the truth when you’re wrong, when you’re being unfair, when you’re getting carried away, or when — to use the technical term — you are full of shit. Then, when the crowd is screaming, when the internet is losing its mind, when strangers are confidently informing you who you are and why you did what you did, bring it back to those ten. Ask yourself what they would think. Ask yourself whether they would be disappointed in you. Ask yourself whether they would tell you that you had acted unfairly, or out of vanity, tribalism, or cowardice. Or even better, go and ask them yourself.
In my case, I don’t have ten people to call upon, because quite frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck what strangers think of me, and never have. I do care what certain people think of me, but that number is really small — far fewer than ten — and which people depends on which topic is under discussion anyway. I am friendly with people who are more liberally-minded than I am, or who are deeply religious, for example, so occasionally I might pause before opening my big yap to expound on what has raised my irritation level, but I have to say, I don’t pause for very long.
People who know me also know about my opinions, and by and large they accept them, or not, as the case may be. I don’t change my opinions very often anyway, because in most cases they have come after long and detailed contemplation, so (in the absence of further information) there’s little reason to change them — and “because this might offend Person X” is not a reason for change.
That said, if I am occasionally guilty of being full of shit, I will accept the excoriation from these few people and either change my position or else at least acknowledge my stupidity. Most of the time, it’s because they know more about the topic than I do, and I bow to their expertise without a second thought.
But for the rest? I don’t care a fig, and never have.
I could have written all of that. And done so in 10 words or less.
It’s at the base of why we moved to the woods 20 years ago this month.
I had to go to a city yesterday for an appt at the VA and it’s the first time I had to mingle with the masses since last Sept. I was suffering from sensory overload pretty quick.
Probably the most memorable part, unfortunately, was when I was putting gas in my vehicle I saw, from about 20 feet away, the first negro I have seen with my bare eyes in more than 2 years.
And what a specimen she was. Guessing, mid 20’s, grossly obese, skin tight britches (how did she get them on) stretched over an enormous ass that literally wobbled hard as she walked.
Her back was toward me as she pumped the gas and the britches were brown and the seam went DEEP into the cleft leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.
The look on my mug was probably similar to the first time I saw one of them red assed baboons at the zoo. Where my bleach bottle iz?
Well said as usual Kim.
Absolute truth. I’m more interested in the opinion of people I respect and that they respect me (allowing their feedback, as you say) than I am about being liked. And the number of people that I do worry about whether we are on the same page is also vanishingly small.
What is happening to me, however, is that I am becoming less tolerant of bullshit and much less worried about societal niceties, much to the chagrin of my wife. Apparently once sensible people have begun to stop being sensible, or at least paying lip service to bullshit, motivated by “political correctness”, no doubt. I used to be able to at least be civil to people whose opinions I do not respect. Key words “used to be”.
Now, I’m becoming much more in tune with that meme of cowboy Sam Elliot saying, “You’re a special kid of stupid, aren’t you?” I don’t know if it’s age (I’ve always been a bit of a curmudgeon, but I am becoming more so), or the fact that leftist bullshit has literally gone from just stupid to insane. Michael Savage is quite right, liberalism is a mental disorder.
I still have my few (fingers of one hand few) friends I respect and who can check me in my opinions sometimes. But I’m becoming much less tolerant of the rest of society than I used to be. And that gives my wife agita. She’s Filipino, and has the typical Asian adherence to social niceties, and Filipinos seem to take it even further than the Japanese. She will rail at the TV right along with me and sends me conservative links to peruse she has found interesting. But she continues to treat the idiots as if they are not. Idiots. I can’t do that any longer, and she’s becoming mortified.
We don’t go out together as much because I’m usually wearing my bright red MAGA cap or some conservative t-shirt. We’re going out to dinner with friends tonight so none of that allowed. But I wear the hat because I KNOW I’m pissing off all lot of people. I get a half dozen compliments on the MAGA hat when in the grocery store, for example, so I know I must be irritating at least that many. And that delights me. Wife won’t go to the store with me anymore. Lol